ABSTRACT
The risks and anxieties associated with eating in modern Western societies need to be placed both in economic and historical context. Quite clearly, for large numbers of people in the contemporary world the overriding anxiety relating to food emerges out of a concern that now or in the future one simply will not be able to get enough food to remain healthy and active or, for that matter, alive. Similarly, even in Europe, we do not need to reach very far back into history to come across situations in which food shortages affected the lives of millions of individuals. The Second World War, for example, saw widespread food shortages in continental Europe, although they were often unevenly distributed in geographical and social terms. Indeed, in some instances, large numbers starved, or were starved, to death. As we have already seen, low nutritional standards and inadequate food intake were common in the lower orders of British society in the nineteenth century. Indeed, Mennell (1985:27) argues that centuries of recurrent famine have left their mark upon the European mind, with such themes as starvation and cannibalism woven into the very fabric of European folklore.
